(Posted by Ray Stephens)
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:07:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Lambert <mlambert727@yahoo.com>
To: H-TEXAS@H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: Collection Acquisition---Texas General Land Office Archives
Sept. 29, 2010
Legendary land surveying papers donated to Texas General Land Office
Land surveys unavailable for more than 50 years will soon be widely accessible
to the public
AUSTIN — Beginning more than 120 years ago, Willis Day Twichell surveyed tens
of
millions of acres of public and private lands in West Texas. He laid out more
than 40 towns and provided surveying work in 165 of 254 counties in Texas. The
lands he surveyed included the boundary between Texas and New Mexico, gave rise
to the legendary XIT Ranch, funded the building of the State Capitol, helped
build railroads and fund public education in Texas, and were integral to the
exploration of oil and gas in West Texas throughout the 20th century.
The W.D. Twichell Survey Records were recently donated to the Texas General
Land
Office by a consortium of four oil companies operating in the Midland area:
Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Atlantic Richfield Company, ConocoPhillips Company and
ExxonMobil Corporation. The records consist of hundreds of field books,
working
sketches, 200 finished maps, field notes, and about 50,000 pages of
correspondence that document surveying work performed in Texas, Oklahoma, New
Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico.
Land Office Archives staff members are eager to provide full public access to
the collection as soon as possible. “Our goal is to have the Twichell Papers
available to researchers by January 2011,” said Jerry Patterson, Commissioner
of
the Texas General Land Office.
“Our Archives staff also hopes to have all of the Twichell maps and selected
documents scanned and available online by January 2012,” Patterson said.
“This
shows the commitment of the Land Office and Save Texas History program to
preserve the records that document the history of this great state and make
them
widely available.”
Before Twichell’s death in 1959, the Atlantic Refining Company, Continental
Oil
Company, Gulf Oil Corporation, Humble Oil & Refining Company, Mobil Oil
Company
and the Sinclair Oil & Gas Company, organized as the Twichell Survey
Records
Committee, bought the records and placed them in a private storage facility in
Midland. Few people besides oil company employees have had access to the
records
until now.
“The Twichell records document an important part of the history of West
Texas
and the Panhandle,” Patterson said. “We’re excited about their addition
to the
most important collection of maps and records documenting the history of Texas
land.”
It will cost approximately $20,000 to preserve, properly house and digitally
scan the Twichell records so the public can have total access to them, and
potentially $500,000 or more to conserve all of the maps. If you are
interested
in donating to the preservation and conservation of the Twichell records
through
the General Land Office’s Save Texas History program, please call the
Archives
and Records Program of the Texas General Land Office at 512-463-5277 or e-mail
archives@glo.state.tx.us.
Thanks,
Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark Lambert, MLIS, MA, CA, USMC, TXARNG
Deputy Commissioner
Archives and Records
Texas General Land Office
1700 N. Congress Ave., Suite 130
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 463-5260
(512) 475-4619 fax
mark.lambert@glo.state.tx.us
Visit our website: http://www.glo.state.tx.us/archives/archives.html
The best of prophets of the future is the past. Byron
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